New Delhi: Impressed with the hard work as well as smart work put up by Sushma Swaraj, Modi has rewarded India’s external affairs minister a foreign trip to Nepal.

According to our sources in PMO, Prime minister Narendra Modi announced a year before, whoever performs best will get an onsite opportunity. “It was a close fight among top performing ministers. At the end Sushma Swaraj came on top after a grueling appraisal cycle which lasted close to four months”, said a PMO official who wanted us to withhold his identity.

PMO official said, “PM has directed us to keep one suitable foreign trip ready before the appraisal cycle began. As you know PM is very much interested in foreign trips, we have to find something where he is not needed to attend like this Nepal trip. The scheduled meeting on August 10-11 in Nepal is for foreign ministers of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) to meet so that they can decide the important date for the group’s next meeting later this year”.

“While presenting the case, PM asked, why for this foreign ministers need to meet, why Prime ministers cannot meet? How many times he himself has gone to Nepal, will there be a trip for him to Nepal soon? about next set of trips that is planned for him. We were ready with the answers as we expected these kinds of questions will come during face to face meeting with him”, said the PMO official.

We spoke to super excited Sushma Swaraj over phone who took a ten minute break from tweeting. Sushma Swaraj said, “Hard work and perseverance always pay unless you happen to be one of the modern-day Gandhi or Vadera. This trip will motive me as well as my other colleagues in the cabinet to work even harder, let the best performer win next time, heard it will be to Bhutan”.

In the meantime, an IT engineer who worked 18 hours per day for last one year to get the top performer rating said, “Was feeling low after getting just five percent hike. After Sushma Swaraj’s Nepal trip confirmation, I am feeling much better now”.